With an eye on expanding its customer care reach, OIT recently created two OIT Help Desks: one dedicated exclusively to faculty and staff and one designed specifically for students. Both Help Desks are located in room 1400 of the Computer and Space Sciences Building. Business hours have recently been extended to Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. - 6 p.m., with expanded hours anticipated in the future.

The Faculty/Staff Help Desk is staffed by OIT employees and is devoted to providing top-quality technical support to the university’s administrators, faculty, and staff, while the Student Help Desk is staffed by current students who are trained to assist their peers with a full range of computer issues. Both Help Desks will also provide hardware warranty services and other support by appointment for machines obtained through the University of Maryland’s new computer purchasing program offered by OIT, Academic Computers for Terps (ACT) (www.act.umd.edu). These additional levels of assistance will be conducted by vendor certified technicians. The Help Desks ultimately will strive to serve as full “one-stop shops” for all faculty, staff, and student hardware, software, access, and repair needs.

The telephone number for the Faculty/Staff Help Desk remains 301.405.1500. The new number for the Student Help Desk is 301.405.1400. For more information about the OIT Help Desks, please visit www.helpdesk.umd.edu.